If one musician ever personified the term role model, someone who inspires his fans to strive for maximum creativity and to always keep pushing forward so they could achieve every possible dream within their grasp, look no further than Mark Tremonti who’s relentless drive and ethereal virtuosity as a guitarist, frontman, and now first-time author continues to reach newfound heights of artistic excellence.
In 2018, Mark Tremonti is standing stronger than ever as he spent this past summer opening for the zenith of heavy metal in Iron Maiden, and released his first ever concept record, A Dying Machine in June, which saw the band combine unforgiving thrash intensity with enriching lyrical content that stretched beyond its gargantuan choruses and progressive songwriting. For the first time ever, Tremonti delved into the world of literature and co-wrote an accompanying novel with renowned cyberpunk writer John Shirley that heavily amplifies the futuristic and technological themes of his lyrics in A Dying Machine.
Also, on September 7, Alter Bridge will be releasing their highly-anticipated Live At The Royal Albert Hall album, which features the band performing alongside a 52-piece orchestra at one of the most historic venues in the world. In my opinion, their latest journey could be considered the definitive artistic statement of the band’s career, which speaks the utmost volumes about their immeasurable musicianship, character, and determination to push the boundaries of their catalog to the highest possible levels of live excellence in a classical setting.
I recently spoke with Tremonti frontman and Alter Bridge guitarist Mark Tremonti and we truly delved into all aspects behind the writing and recording process for A Dying Machine, stepping into the world of developing an original narrative, and the magnitude of Alter Bridge’s artistic achievement and performance with the Parallax Orchestra. Keep your eyes glued to the screen as Tremonti is one of the coolest guys in the music industry and shares some incredible stories about one of the most exciting and diverse creative periods of his career.
Hey Mark, how’s it going?
Very good, Anthony. How are you?
Very good, thank you. Are you enjoying some time off in Orlando?
I’m actually up in Chicago at the moment.
Oh, cool. Are you playing in Chicago or just out there for vacation?
Na, I’m just visiting my pops because he lives it up here.
That’s awesome. You’re not too far off from Michigan either.
Yeah, I grew up in Michigan. I also lived in Chicago for three-years and now I’m down in Orlando.
Did you live in Chicago early on?
Yeah, I think I was fourth-grade when I moved here and I lived here until I was in seventh-grade.
Were you there for the Chicago Bulls?
I was! I was there for the Bears and the Bulls.
Oh man, that’s cool. What was it like being there when Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen were playing?
Oh, it was cool. That was my favorite sports team of all-time. I was crushed when they all decided to leave one-year. It turned me away from sports for a while.
That was such a travesty. I’m a big NBA fan too and that team was the best.
Oh yeah, I loved it. I loved it. I was heartbroken when they all ran off. I think Toni Kukoč was the only one left. They didn’t lose just one player, not just two players, but I don’t know, like five of the key players (laughs).
Well hey, I’ve heard Chicago is amazing in the summer.
Oh yeah, absolutely. But you don’t want to be here during the winter, just the summertime (laughs).
(Laughs) And that’s why you live in Orlando, right?
That’s right! That’s right (laughs).
On the topic of this summer, how would you describe a summer where you released a brand new record and went on tour with Iron Maiden? What have the last three-months been like?
Oh, it has been amazing. This has been the biggest tour we have done with Tremonti. With the Iron Maiden tour, you just have to pinch yourself every day. The first concert I ever saw was Iron Maiden so to be able to say that “Hey, Iron Maiden is up next!” when you’re doing your set is pretty intense. And the crowds were massive.
Did you have a moment to hang out with Adrian Smith and Dave Murray and talk guitar with them?
I didn’t get to meet Dave but I have met Adrian a few times and he has always been very nice. The first time I met him, he said, “We have to hit the six-string.” I said, “Absolutely, man!” We just never had the chance.
Touring with Iron Maiden in Europe, were you playing to an average of 30,000 people, somewhere around there?
Yeah, it was all over the place. Sometimes they were just headlining a festival and we were on that same show and there were 80,000 people there. For their own shows, they were massive and sometimes multiple nights. We did multiple nights in Zürich and there were 19,000 people every night. It was just amazing.
Which city was the most excited for the Tremonti material in a way that you did not expect?
Athens, Greece was over the top and I loved it. Going to Croatia, I had never been to Croatia before and that was my favorite new country that I hadn’t visited before and the crowds were amazing. Going to Slovenia, that was a really fun show because the crowds are just pure metal over there and they loved it. But overall, Athens was probably the biggest surprise.
Did you play in an historic venue with that vintage type of architecture?
No, we actually played a massive, massive field and there was a mountain range behind it. It was this humongous gathering and the backdrop was crazy. It reminded me of playing in Switzerland with the big mountains behind you.
One unique parallel about this tour, I think of a great concept record like Iron Maiden’s Seventh Son of A Seventh Son and to revert it back to Tremonti, A Dying Machine evolved into this grand concept album and storyline musically and lyrically. Could you take me through the earliest stages of the writing process and formulating this storyline?
Yeah, you know, Seventh Son of a Seventh was the first concert that I ever saw in my life and it’s really cool that you could connect the dots after all of these years. But that being said, I was never a concept record fan and never thought about doing a concept record. I just sat down one-day before I played a show in Hungary, I was about to go on-stage in twenty-minutes and I started writing this chord progression and singing over it and the lyrics, “You’re a dying machine” just kind of came out. I think what it was, subconsciously, I had been reading The Dark Tower series by Stephen King and in the Wastelands book, there were these robots who were dying and they were a few thousand years-old.
I had that subconsciously in my mind and I spit it out. I came up with this concept of this man who has created this being to be his partner and she obsesses about him and ends up killing him. I was really excited about this story and after I finished that song, I didn’t want to leave that world and I just kept on developing it. I thought maybe at first, it would be about three or four songs. Once I got there, I decided that I was going to go the whole way and keep on developing this story. When I was just about done writing the record, I have always had this bucket list item of getting a book published or writing a book so I decided to take that dive and do the concept record with the accompanying novel. The novel should be completely printed here in the next nine-days.
How rewarding of a feeling was it to crossover into such a different artform? What’s your favorite comparable aspect of writing a storyline and the songwriting process?
You know, it comes from the same place, believe it or not. It’s just about opening up your imagination and trying to capture lightning in a bottle with ideas. I hired a co-writer to work with on this book because when I first started putting the pen to paper on the idea, I realized that it was going to take way too long to get a book done within the time-frame that I needed before I would be off touring this record. So I partnered up with John Shirley, I was kicking ideas off back-and-forth with him and it was just like working with Myles on an Alter Bridge record. You have a writing partner to throw ideas at and if they’re excited about something that you’re excited about, it makes you more confident that you’re going in the right direction. I don’t think I’ve ever had my imagination opened up as much as I’ve had while writing this book and making this record at the same time.
From a writer’s perspective, how unique of an experience was it to create your own characters and truly build your own world, all through the power of your imagination?
You know, it was amazing. When I had the idea for this record, I had a vision for a handful of characters. I have the main character Stella, she is the main character in the song “A Dying Machine.” And I have Brennan who is the person that owns her and a whole staff of angry Vessels who could be found in the action side of the book. John had a big part in helping me out with creating those characters. There’s a team of folks who join the story in the beginning of the book and John helped me flesh them out.
The main character, Stella, is the dying machine in the book and she is the one that I wanted people to fall in love with. I wanted her to be the strongest character in the whole thing and when we were reviewing the chapter where she was first introduced, it was such an exciting time and probably the most exciting time of putting the novel together.
Collaborating with John Shirley, were there any pieces of advice that he shared, which expanded your editorial approach and will stick with you moving forward?
I think it’s just learning that you don’t have to start from the beginning and work your way through the end. You could pull all of your ideas together and organize them at a different time. I actually learned that from my cousin because he married a writer and explained that to me. I said to him, “It is very daunting to think about starting from page one and thinking your way through it after that.” He said, “No, you write a piece here and a piece there than you throw them all on the table and organize it after the fact. That makes it easier to think about the whole story coming together.”
Were there any authors that you looked to for inspiration?
You know, with a concept like this one, that kind of suggests the AI theme, you want to be as different as you can because there has already been a Terminator, Ex-Machina, and Blade Runner. We wanted to put our own twist on it. I know I wanted to have more of a human-side and when I’m writing either music or ideas like this, that’s kind of when I want to stay in my own bubble and not be too influenced by outside sources so it stays very original.
This album has a cinematic, score-like feel. A Dying Machine being a concept record, were you originally looking to tell the story in sequence with the track-listing?
Yeah, with the order of the tracks, at first, I thought it would be good to do them in sequential order. It ended up being weird so I approached it like I would do a normal flow of an album sequence, instead of telling a story right down the timeline. It’s not in sequence but it dynamically fit this way. Once people actually read the story, they will know how things flow.
“Bringer of War,” from the marching drums to the galloping rhythms, how did the main thrash- style riff and massive chorus come together?
That all kind of happens with chance and comes with messing around and experimenting with ideas. I put on some drum loops and whatnot and I will sit down and write. A lot of my biggest influences come from that world so it was a lot of capturing lightning in a bottle.
“Throw Them To the Lions and “Make It Heart,” those are some of the heaviest and fastest songs of your career thus far. Was it cathartic to tap into that mindset for the storyline and just unleash those bends in the riffs?
Oh, absolutely. I will always love that. I love to create dynamics with every album. I think if there aren’t any dynamics, like if every song is really heavy than it won’t translate well. I like to have peaks and valleys and tell a story. And this record had four different character perspectives that these songs were sung through so it helped me role-play and have different personalities throughout the record.
“The Day When Legions Burn,” musically and lyrically, feels like one of the most crucial moments and turning points of the storyline. Am I correct in saying that?
Oh yeah, a lot of those songs like “The Day When Legions Burn” and “Traipse” happen in the second-half and three-quarters of the way through the story. They all happen relatively close to one-another. The plot for the “A Dying Machine” title-track takes about half of the book to get through and “The Day When Legions Burn” is a turning point where we have this creation, we have created these beings to be in our own likeness but when we don’t treat them with the proper respect, things could go very wrong and that’s where “The Day When Legions Burn” is a turning point, when these things start turning on us.
I’m looking forward checking out this novel. It’s such an interesting concept, it’s so relevant in terms of where society is headed with artificial intelligence over the next twenty-five years.
That’s actually one thing I was going to say, there’s nothing in this book that is completely unbelievable. This story takes place at the turn of the next century and this could very well happen. It’s not too far-fetched. With John Shirley, one of the main reasons why he did such an excellent job in helping me put this story together is because he’s an expert on where technology is headed. He does Ted Talks in Belgium about singularity and if I sit there and say, “This is what happens next in the plot,” he could explain to me how that technology has already been developed and it’s about twenty-years out of being put to use. He’s very educated about where technology is headed.
Working alongside someone with the pedigree of John’s background, when you have those conversations with John, do you feel a sense of optimism or do you feel more concerned about where society is headed from a technology standpoint?
I get a little more concerned than optimistic, to be honest with you (laughs). Just overall with industrialization and how we’re taxing the environment more than we can sustain. It’s not going to be able to sustain itself anymore so it’s more scary than optimistic.
When you heard about some of those scenarios from John and just going back-and-forth between the two worlds, did it ever feel relieving to just pick up the guitar and be able to escape with your songwriting?
I loved every second of it. I was actually getting depressed when it was all coming to an end. John and I would get on the phone everyday and go over the story. During our last few conversations about the story, I kept on telling him how I was sad that this journey was coming to an end. Hopefully, this book ends up being a success so we could do a part-two. As we were talking about that, we added a few little things towards the end of the story that doesn’t make it feel incomplete but it gives us an open-ended kind of way that if we wanted to do a sequel, we could.
As we speak, you have about 2,000 books available for pre-order on your website. Overall, the goal is to create a buzz with the current run and turn A Dying Machine into a wide-scale publishing effort that could be found in book stores worldwide?
Like I said before, that is one of my big dreams to get that done and to find a publishing house. When I met with the agents at UTA, they said to do a limited run. If you put too many on sale, it’s harder to get a publishing deal. I really want a bigger opportunity to get the book out there in book stores so we’re playing it safe.
Working alongside Elvis Baskette, when you explained to him what you were looking to accomplish with your concept and vision, did he provide any advice on how to best translate those storyline ideas into the songs?
No, I wrote all of the songs and all of the parts. Everything was done, the lyrics and arrangements, when I got into the studio. He just helps with getting the best performance out of you and making it sound as good as it possibly can and making the mix sound huge. He would sit in the studio at night and orchestrate, like if you stripped away everything that we did on the record and just heard his programming on some of these songs, he is just a genius at doing that stuff. Like the title-track “A Dying Machine,” he orchestrated what sounds like a full orchestra behind the song. It’s very subtle on the record but if you isolate it, he would stay up all night long doing it so he definitely played a big part.
On the topic of strings and orchestration, Alter Bridge’s Live At The Royal Albert Hall is coming out on September 7. We’re right around the corner. How excited are you to have this performance documented and for fans to witness such a monumental achievement in your band’s career?
Oh, I’m really, really excited. This has been such an exciting year for me artistically between my favorite solo record that I’ve done and to have a novel accompany it, and than on top of that, what I think is probably the best thing that we have put out with Alter Bridge at this point in our career. I think this DVD will be what I show my kids and grandkids when I get older and I’ll be like, “This is what old grandpa used to do (laughs).” That’s what I will show them, Live At The Royal Albert Hall.
The footage looks stunning. Between the venue and performance, it’s some of the most impressive video footage that I’ve ever seen. Was this recorded by the same team who filmed Live at Wembley: European Tour 2011?
No, this is a new crew. We have worked with Daniel Catullo in the past but we worked with a different crew this time. It’s much more stripped down and I think it’s better. I think it’s cleaner, sharper, and I don’t know how much that has to do with the eye, the taste of the shots, or the technology. Maybe it’s a combination of both. We love the way it turned out.
As a band, when you sit down with the production crew, do you give them an idea of what you’re ideally looking for or do you trust in their vision to capture the performance?
You know what, they could walk around with their cell phones and show you the shots that they are imagining. We just looked at those shots and they were just all amazing. There’s a combination, I don’t know about how many angles they had but they just looked epic on camera. Once you see three or four amazing shots, you stop questioning them and you put your trust in them.
Could you describe how it felt when you watched the DVD for the first time and saw this journey come to life?
Oh yeah, from the moment we got off stage, we just couldn’t wait to see it. We’re so happy that we captured that night, the second night especially, because that was probably the most satisfying night that any of us have ever had on stage over the last twenty-five years. It was something that we were really excited about. We were a little nervous that it would be hard to capture what we felt on stage. Once you started hearing the mixes come together and seeing some of the first edits of the video come together, we were very confident that they did a great job. I’ve seen it through a few times now and I’m very proud of it.
Simon Dobson, he seems like such a knowledgeable musical mind. Working with a composer and 52-piece orchestra, what was it like to rehearse and perform alongside so many other musicians?
You know, we weren’t as involved with one another as you think. We gave them the setlists and than one-by-one, it was either Simon or the first violin chair, they were the composers who put together the piece they would play and they were behind all the orchestration that we would play. I remember that “Cry of Achilles” was one of the first songs they gave us and we took what they had written and put it into a synth program, so we could actually hear synthetic synth versions of the instruments playing over the song and we were blown away. Of course, it sounded more sterile when you’re listening to it synthed-up like that but we understood what they were going after.
Again, after three, four, or five songs, we trusted that they had it down. There was nothing that stuck out like, I thought we would have to sit through even single song and be like, “Ah, that violin is hitting a bad note. Ah, I really don’t like this part or that part.” We honestly loved everything. Once we all agreed to let them do their thing, we got together for rehearsals and we figured that we would be able to roll through these songs many, many times and if something felt weird, we could change it and whatnot. There were so many people there and it took us so long to get through each phase of what we were doing; we were only able to rehearse each song pretty much one-time before we played it live. There wasn’t a lot of chances to really dig deep into. We trusted in them and they trusted in us and we just hit it off.
To me, it sounds like that’s how the magic happens. There’s this combination of two different worlds, you have that trust-factor and spontaneity, and we’re on this ride together and let’s see how far we can take it.
Yeah, you know, one of the main things that we had to work on was to make sure when you counted off a song, everyone had to start off at the same time. There were a few times that we would rehearse these songs and little did we remember that we played it differently live. These guys were listening to the album versions and album arrangements and over the years, we had morphed some of these things and we were reminded of that when people were coming in at the wrong times. We had to make sure all of our counts were right and make sure everyone was starting the song at the same time. If anybody was off by one-beat, it would be a complete disaster and that was our main concern.
Looking at the setlist and seeing epics like “The Last Hero,” could you possibly describe what it felt like to be on-stage and perform that type of epic with a full-fledged orchestra behind it?
Oh, we loved it. The night after we played the last orchestra show, we did our next headlining show and we were all just disappointed now that we had already played with the orchestra. After the fact, it kind of took the wind out of our sails when we went back to playing with just the four of us. When you are up there and you have an orchestra playing behind your songs, it elevates you and gives you the chills at every moment. It’s surreal and something that you have to experience for yourself to really know how it felt. It was an amazing, amazing feeling. It was like putting a steroid in your performance. It was just the best it had ever been.
And the setlist has a healthy balance with songs from all five of your records. How did you go about choosing your setlist, the rarities you wanted to play, and where you wanted to place certain tracks?
We wanted to make sure we played the songs that would fit the orchestra best. We weren’t going to play a really heavy set. We wanted to play the atmospheric stuff; stuff that breathes and stuff that has space. Songs that had dynamics and songs where you could actually hear what the strings were doing. If you just had an aggressive sound the entire night, it would be a waste to play with the orchestra so we fashioned the setlist to fit the night and the purpose of using the orchestra.
You mentioned this being the most rewarding experience of your career. From a musician’s standpoint, to go through this together as a band, was this is also the greatest learning lesson and experience that you could have had, especially in such a short time-frame?
Yeah, I think whenever you challenge yourself like that, it was an extreme challenge. It’s an extreme amount of pressure when you have a tour scheduled and you see that date where you are filming something that is going to live on forever. You have an entire orchestra, an entire film crew, and a setlist that is completely different than what we’re used to and a lot of complicated songs that we have never played before. It was a massive amount of pressure and nerves. I think when you come out of this on the other side and feel like it was a success, it gives you confidence for the rest of your career to say, “Hey, you know what, we got through that. We could get through this.”
I felt the same way going on tour with Iron Maiden. With my solo band, this is a much smaller band than Alter Bridge and a lot of those those fans didn’t know who the hell we were. So we got up on stage and we had to bring it every single night. When you come off something like that or the Royal Albert Hall, it makes you stronger and gives you a lot more confidence to move forward and try to tackle new things.
Collaborating with the orchestra and expanding the way you approached your older material, would you like to play with them again or incorporate some more orchestral elements in future recordings?
I don’t know about in recordings. Whenever we record an album, we always have strings here and there; just subtle things to make it feel different. They don’t really stick out and a lot of people may not notice it. But there is a chance that we might try to get together and do this thing live in the future, hopefully.
And touring with a band like Iron Maiden and the classicality in their performance, were there aspects of their performance that influenced you when watching them every night that you would like to translate into the next batch of Tremonti material?
Iron Maiden has an incredible way of writing songs; they write very energetic songs with big melodies. People love to go see them and they play really nice and heavy and aggressive stuff that makes you feel good. I love dark metal, don’t get me wrong but I also love my anthemic, heavy, and aggressive metal and that’s what Iron Maiden brings to the table. You see how it works in a live setting and I think that kind of rubs off on you a little bit. The more you play live, the more you want to write material that is going to be great live. Sometimes you fashion parts of your album to keep that in mind because you know you will have to play it live, night after night.
Being such a huge fan of the band, was there a specific moment, guitar solo, dual harmony, or performance that stands out above the rest?
Oh, they would start their set with “Aces High” every single night and that was one of my all-time favorite songs growing up. When they played “The Number of the Beast” every night, they had Eddie come out on stage and throughout the whole damn show, I would say to myself, “I can’t believe this is happening.” I would be walking down the hallway and I would run into Nicko and he would say, “Hey Mark, how have you been?” I would think, “Is this real (laughs)? Is this really happening (laughs)?”
